Doing the Right Thing

Daily we are all confronted with situations where we can do the right thing or the wrong thing. As a parents of two small developing children my wife and I are constantly trying to reinforce doing what is right and discouraging (or in some cases punishing) making the wrong choice. I had a drill sergeant in the Army that used to say "hard right over easy wrong" and it is something that sticks with me even to this day.

All of this makes it extremely hard for me to understand how the government can justify a trillion dollar "bail out" (or hand out however you choose to view it) with a straight face. Now this isn't intended to be a diatribe on the government and this is not turning into a political blog by any means. It is however my view on a situtation that will affect not only our children but our children's children. Continuing on our current track our country as we know it will go from a nation that is founded on hard work, innovation, and a desire to succeed to a welfare state where everyone has their hand out to the government. It is like we have become a country that is afraid to fail or let any of our citizens fail, Robert Kennedy said "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever acheive greatly". This is the root of our countries problems that go from the everyday citizen all the way to the White House. We are so afraid to let our children fail at anything that they are not building any character or learning to cope with disappointment. It's ok to fail as long as you get up and try again, it's ok to lose as long as you played as hard as you were capable. Sadly in this era of "everybody gets a trophy" the message of overcoming adversity is lost. With the direction that this country is headed what incentive to I or my children have to be anything other than mediocre. If you are financially successful all you get is the opportunity to pay more taxes and the disdain of those too lazy to be sucessful themselves. Since when did it become a crime to get an education, work hard, and reap the benefits of your labor? The proposed Mortgage Handout that is being discussed now rewards those that don't pay their bills, took out loans that they had no business being approved for and living outside of their means. Where those of us who live in modest houses, drive older cars, and pay our bills are getting nothing more than the opportunity to have more of our tax dollars taken away and spent on our deadbeat neighbors. Where is the incentive to do the right thing? Why should I send in my mortgage payment each month on a house that has lost 20 % of its value in the last year?

At the risk of sounding political the only thing that we as citizens can do is vote out the current batch of crooks and try to find some one with principles and values to lead our nation.